Jeff, it is ironic that you bring that up, because this week I was talking to an agent at the store, that I had given some of my material for review, while picking up a coffee and I asked him if he had looked at my sample report.
He said yes, looks good, and then went on to say that, hey you know this guy? I told him yes, I met him at a Nachi seminar about four years ago.
Yeah, the agent went on to say, he would inspect a house and recommend a plumber for this, an electrician for this, a roofer for this, a contractor for this, the roof is shot and the furnance is dying.
I said wow!
The agent said he moved to Canada, “Sorry guys”;), he was a deal killer. The agent said the clients were saying, why did I hire him if I need to hire all these other people?
I said, good that he is no longer a nachi member, thank god for that. This particular person was the one that inspected my Daughters first house years ago and was an independent. Joined Nachi a couple of years later and I was surprised to see him in a Nachi seminar.
It goes to say, that these old buildings have been around for a long time, and everyone should learn to recognize that none of them will meet today’s standard of codes and building procedures.
Upgrades, yes, repair to meet today’s standard, I don’t think will happen.
Learn to recognize what is failing or needs to be repaired or has gone over it’s useful life.
Engineers/Architects, are needed when a darn building is falling apart or on the road to failures and can’t be repaired without engineered drawings supplied to a local contractor.
Understand the engineering concepts of today and of yesteryears, and report what you see.
Engineers are there to make repairs for failures, not for Home maintenance and modern building standard upgrade repairs. The local licensed and qualified building contractor can accomplish more than meets the eye.
They can repair most problems with a house as long as it does not encompass design work for sturctural repairs or failures.
Evaluations in repairs, upgrades, come to the Contractor, then to the Architect and finally to the Engineer for failures. Lot’s of time, engineering is done in house in an Architects office. :)